The Answering Machine Knew

The Answering Machine Knew

A Renee Brown Mystery

Book 1

Fay Risner

Cover Art

All Rights Reserved 2015

by author Fay Risner

Copyright (c) 2015

All Rights Reserved

Fay Risner

Published by Fay Risner At Smashwords

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals are entirely coincidental. Excerpts from this book cannot be used without written permission from the author.

Booksbyfay Publisher

Author, editor and Publisher

fayrisner@netins.net

Fay Risner's books

Nurse Hal Among The Amish Series

A Promise Is A Promise Doubting Thomas

The Rainbow’s End Hal’s Worldly Temptations

As Her Name Is So Is Redbird

Emma’s Gossamer Dreams The Courting Buggy

Amazing Gracie Historical Mystery Series

Neighbor Watchers Poor Defenseless Addie

Specious Nephew Will O Wisp

The Country Seat Killer The Chance Of A Sparrow

Moser Mansion Ghosts

Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders

Renee Brown Mystery Series

The Answering Machine Knew

Westerns

Stringbean Hooper Westerns Tread Lightly Sibby

The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary The Blue Bonnet

Small Feet’s Many Moon Journey Coffin To Lie On

Ella Mayfield's Pawpaw Militia-Civil War

Christmas books

Christmas Traditions - An Amish Love Story Christmas With Hover Hill

Leona’s Christmas Bucket List

Fiction

Listen To Me Honey Robot Grandma

Children Books

Spooks In Claiborne Mansion

My Children Are More Precious Than Gold

Mr. Quacker

Nonfiction about Alzheimer’s disease

Open A Window - Caregiver Handbook

Hello Alzheimer’s Goodbye Dad-author’s true story

Cookbook

Midwest Favorite Lamb Recipes

Books published by Booksbyfay Publisher

Romance

Sunset Til Sunrise On Buttercup Lane by Connie Risner

Military-nonfiction-Vietnam War

Redcatcher MP by Mickey Bright

The short story version of this book – The Answering Machine Knew – I entered in the 2009 Arkansas Writers' Conference in the category Crime Fiction. The story was awarded first honorable mention.

Prologue

Plop down and take a load off your feet while we get acquainted. I'm Police Detective Renee Brown from Wedgewood, Minnesota. I was born twenty miles away in the county seat's area hospital thirty years ago and have lived in Wedgewood ever since.

I was raised in the average small town, Father Knows Best household. Dad owns Brown's Shoe Store on Main Street, having inherited it from his father. He's average looking, medium built and just getting a paunch with middle age.

Mom was a looker in her younger days. Now she has gray streaked black hair and spreading hips, but she's still pretty. She chose to stay home to raise me and my sister, Diane, whose two years younger than me. Of course, married women were homemakers in those days if they had a husband making a good living for the family like my dad has.

My hair is dark like my mom's. My eyes are dark brown, almost black. When I was little, Mom called me the spitting image of her mother's mother, a Chippewa Indian princess. I I said I didn't want to be related to an Indian, so I suspected Mom added the princess title to impress me.

Mom even showed me pictures of my great grandma to prove we looked alike. I couldn't see the resemblance, but just in case others did, I refused to wear pigtails. No way did I want to end up mistaken for an Indian and get carried off to the Chippewa Indian Settlement to live.

Then there's my sister, Diane. Well, what can I say about her? To me, she's just my little sister. She looks like my father's side of the family with fair hair and skin. Just like Dad, she's serious natured to the point of being boring, but she has a real nice husband.

We have always been close, but since we've grown up, we don't spend much time together. Diane and her husband, Paul Logan, bought an older ranch style home in the housing development constructed back in the sixties on the north edge of town. They're busy with their own life as I am mine, so we mostly meet up on holidays at my parents house.

Wedgewood is in the middle of farm country. Was a time we knew everyone that lived in town, and they knew my family. You know how that goes.

Only two churches in town, Catholic and Lutheran. My family is Catholic. Mom and Dad are civic minded volunteers on several church committees. Dad makes the effort, because it might help his shoe store business.

My senior year of high school, I mulled over what I should choose for a career. I guess I took too long to speak up. One night, Dad folded the Wedgewood Weekly Newspaper and laid it in his lap. When he focused on me, I knew something was on his mind.

He asked me which college I would like to attend. One for nursing or one for teaching? Of course, it's not hard to see how he'd think that way. Those were the only two choices single women had for respectable work back then.

By the time Dad asked me, I'd already decided what I wanted to do. I just hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell him. You see I've always been something of a dare devil, and I knew he wouldn't be pleased with my decision.

Mom listened quietly, with interest, to our conversation while she crocheted on a doily to give as a gift. She's made many over the years in all shapes and sizes. When she didn't have anyone in mind to give the doilies to, she stocked piled a bunch just for a way to spend her evenings productively.

Now that Dad had brought the subject up, I didn't have a choice but to discuss my future. I told him I didn't want to go to either of those colleges. I was going to the Police Academy.

You should have seen Dad's chin drop as he eyed me over his glasses. Mom's reaction was more subtle. That might have been the only time, she dropped a stitch and had to tear out a row make a correction.

You don't want to do that, Dad said earnestly.

Actually yes, I do. A policeman job is more interesting to me than the other two choices. I folded my arms and looked him square in the eyes.

Mom glanced at me while her crochet hook flew in and out of the stitches in the last row. With a quick smile and a wink she always used when she didn't agree with Dad and wanted to side with us girls, she said, Dear, it is your life. If that's your choice, go for it."

Dad knew he'd been ganged up on when Mom expressed an opinion different from his. He picked up the newspaper, shook the folds out and held it in front of his face to signify our conversation was over. Safely behind it, he muttered, Ornery little cuss.

Mind you I didn't take offense. In fact, I figure there are times when he's on the golf course with his friends, he's sharing wife stories about something Mom did that irritated him. I'm sure he calls her an ornery cuss, too.

That's his favorite by word for anyone he's mad at. The only one in the family he doesn't get upset with is Diane. She has always been the sweet, good natured baby of the family to hear Dad tell it.

After high school graduation, I moved sixty miles away to entered the Police Academy. I graduated pretty close to the top of my class.

I moved back home to live until I decided where I wanted to put in applications. I figured I'd have to leave Wedgewood for a larger city to find a job.

As luck would have it, Mom came home all excited two days after I moved back. That afternoon, she'd played in the Bridge Tournament with the senior citizen group at the community center.

Mom said Mrs. Brookwood told her Mrs. Swanson said a position for police officer would be opening up soon right there in town. Mrs. Swanson's husband, Gene, was ready to retire.

Mom suggested working in a small police department like Wedgewood's might be a good way for me to get my feet wet so to speak. The job would give me experience that would look good on a resume if I moved on later. The idea had merit, but Mom didn't fool me. She hated to see me move to a large city with a more dangerous crime rate than Wedgewood.

The next morning right after breakfast, I drove to the police station. Frankly, I didn't think I had a prayer of a chance for the job. I'd already checked around to find out about the Wedgewood Police Department. The force was an all male one. It always had been, and I had the feeling it always would be.

There were two women that worked as emergency operator/police dispatchers on twelve hour shifts. The two policemen, Gene Swanson and Mike Johnson had the